My father Tom was a workaholic who never missed a single one of my sporting events for nearly two decades, and imparted in me a sense of risk and adventure. Being the one in the middle, I had more room to drift, and after college, I left the U.S. for Chile.

I have interviewed Hugo Chavez, Tim McVeigh, and hundreds of fascinating characters in South America, where I have lived for the past 15 years.

It is a gift to be a teenager, and I see a dad's job as lifeguard, not chaperone.

I would like to be remembered as the reporter who snuck back stage to all the off-limits shows, be it the Vatican dressing room, the Pentagon war room, or the Celtics locker room. Some curtains ought never to be pulled back; others deserve to be ripped down. When appropriate, I want to be the curtain remover.

Sound character provides the power with which a person may ride the emergencies of life instead of being overwhelmed by them. Failure is... the highway to success.

You can never be comfortable with your success, you've got to be paranoid you're going to lose it.

When it comes to anything you want to do in your life, you have to be passionate. Success may come, but in the end, the most important thing is that you are doing what you really want to do.

I think that when we have a better educated society, when there is less violence in our cities, when people get back into the workforce and have the opportunity to take care of themselves and their families - that for me really is the kind of success and the kind of America that I think most of us still want, we aspire to.